Attracting more business tourism from India could be worth millions to the Scottish economy.

VisitScotland will be in the cities of Hyderabad and Bangalore next week to promote the country as a destination for conferences and meetings.

Events in each city will include presentations, workshops and networking dinners with corporate executives who might bring exhibitions and meetings to Scotland.

Currently most visitors from the subcontinent are leisure tourists. In the past five years visitor numbers from India have doubled while their spend has more than trebled to be worth around £25million annually.

As the Indian economy continues to grow VisitScotland hopes to significantly increase revenues from business tourism.

Caroline Packman, head of the business tourism unit at VisitScotland, said: "Although our leisure colleagues have been active in India for some time it is the very first time we have gone to India to specifically promote business tourism.

"We think there is a lot of potential in that market not just in the two cities we are visiting, Hyderabad and Bangalore, but other centres such as Mumbai and Delhi.

An encouraging trip to Russia in October prompted the agency to target other emerging economies.

Packman said: "We want try to get a foot in the door for Scotland at an early stage in the development.

"By visiting we can get an idea from talking to people face-to-face what type of meetings they organise, what is their propensity to bring them overseas, what the perceived strengths and weaknesses of Scotland might be, how to address that and how we can position ourselves to capture a large share of business."

In order to attract more people VisitScotland has teamed up with representatives from Barcelona, Vienna and Cyprus for the events in India. But Packman is confident a collaborative approach will work well.

She said: "India is at such an early level of development it is just about getting Scotland on the map. Normally we don't join up with competing destinations but it makes sense here as we can create a greater impact with a range of European destinations.

"I will be emphasising the fairly well-known icons of Scotland such as dramatic landscape, history, and warm welcoming people.

"But also that we are a vibrant country, with thriving cities, excellent conference facilities and a business oriented destination."

Business tourism is currently worth around £911m to the Scottish economy.